That James, Earl of Morton, John, Earl of Mar, Alexander, Earl of
Glencairn, the Lords Howe, Lindsay, Ruthven, Sempill, Cathcart,
Ochiltree, with others their assisters, assembled in arms a great part
of the Queen's grace's subjects, declared by their proclamations it was
for her Grace's relief, beset the road in her passage betwixt her
Grace's castles of Dunbar and Edinburgh, there took her most noble
person, committed her in ward in her own place of Lochleven, ... passed
to the castle of Stirling, and made there fashion of crowning of her son
the Prince....
James, Earl of Murray, took upon him the name of the Regent, ...
intromitted with the whole strengths, munitions, jewels, and patrimony
of the crown, as well property as casualty....
_MURRAY'S APOLOGY FOR THE REVOLUTION_
October 10. The Answer of the Earl of Murray.
_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 144, from Cott. Lib. Calig., C. i. 202.
_ACCUSATIONS AGAINST MARY_
It is notorious to all men, how umquhile {the late} King Henry, father
to our sovereign Lord, was horribly murdered in his bed. James, sometime
Earl of Bothwell, being well known to be the chief author thereof,
entered into so great credit and authority with the Queen, then our
sovereign, that, within three months after the murder of her husband,
the said Earl ... accomplished a pretended marriage betwix him and the
Queen, which strange and hasty proceeding of that godless and ambitious
man, ... with the ignominy spoken among all nations of that murther, as
though all the nobility had been alike culpable thereof, so moved the
hearts of a good number of them, that they thought nothing more godly
... than by punishing of the said Earl, chief author of the murther, to
relieve others causelessly calumniated thereof, to put the Queen to
freedom, forth of the bondage of that tyrant.... {From the Queen, after
Carberry Hill}, no other answer could be obtained, but vigorous
menacing, on the one part, avowing to be revenged on all them that had
shown themselves in that cause, and on the other part, offering to leave
and give over the realm and all, so she might be suffered to possess the
murtherer of her husband, which her inflexible mind, and extremity of
necessity compelled them to sequestrate her person for a season....
During the which time, she finding herself by long, irksome, and tedious
travail, taken by her in the government of the realm and lieges thereof
... vexed and wearied ... and for other considerations moving her at the
time, therefore demitted and renounced the office of government of the
realm and lieges thereof ... and constituted me, the said Earl of
Murray, I being then absent furth of the realm, and without my
knowledge, Regent to his Grace, the realm, and lieges....
_MARY'S REPLY_
1568.--October 16. Queen Mary's Commissioners' Rejoinder to Murray's
Reply.
_Goodall_, vol. ii. p. 162, from _Queen Mary's Register_
in Cott. Lib. Titus, C. 12.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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